In past lives, Dean Anderson has been a social worker, small business owner, college psychology and philosophy instructor, and world-class couch potato who weighed close to 400 pounds, smoked three packs and drank two six-packs of beer per day, and considered chocolate-peanut butter fudge a well-balanced meal. In this life, Dean earned a personal training certification from ACE, received training as a lifestyle and weight management consultant, and began working for SparkPeople. He writes about attitude adjustment, motivation, men's health, and senior fitness. When not sitting in front of his computer, he can usually be found hiking or biking (he's the bald guy that everyone else is passing).
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What do you do when friends and family aren't supportive?
There’s no doubt about it: long term success at changing your habits and your lifestyle is a lot easier when you have the support of the important people in your life. And a lot harder when you have to swim against the tide.
There’s no great mystery here. A “lifestyle” isn’t something we can or do create all by ourselves, unless we’re hermits—it’s more of a joint project that includes our families, our friends, our workmates, and our whole social environment. It’s fair to say that your lifestyle at any given time is really a negotiated, give-and-take arrangement between you, as an individual with personal needs, desires, and interests, and all the “significant others” in your life, who also have their own agendas and needs. Given the fact that we tend to create our voluntary personal relationships with people who share interests, habits, and behaviors similar to our own, it’s not surprising that changing habits and behaviors is a lot easier when it’s a collective project and not just something you’ve decided to do on your own. Otherwise, change—even obviously healthy, productive change--can mean rocking a lot of boats, and that can be pretty difficult to handle, not only for you but for everyone else involved.
And that's just the situation many of us find ourselves in. What do we do about this?
Posted 9/4/2008 12:00:00 PM By: : 118 comments 19,236 views
Healthy Aging: Don't Leave Your Mind Behind
Use it or lose it.
No doubt you’ve heard this advice often enough about your body and it’s physical abilities. And if, like me, you didn’t pay much attention to it when you were younger, I can tell you that you’ll wish you had by the time the next birthday looming on your calendar is the big 6-0. Trying to get your fitness back is a lot harder than hanging on to as much of it as you can all along.
But what’s even scarier than this physical decline are the mental changes that come with aging–starting with those wacky little episodes we like to refer to jokingly as “senior moments.” Like yesterday, when the combination to my bike lock somehow managed to escape from my brain for a good 30 minutes, leaving me stuck in the middle of nowhere with my bike chained to a tree and wondering whether I should start walking the 9 miles back home, or wait to see if the combination found it’s way back into my brain.
It struck me that forgetting this combination that I had used almost every day for over a year was a little less amusing than the usual problems of not remembering where I put my glasses, or forgetting why I had gotten up to go into a particular room. So, when I got home, I did a little internet research on mental decline, and guess what advice I found...
Posted 9/2/2008 11:50:19 AM By: : 102 comments 27,673 views
For Men Only: Are You a Mirror-Muscle Guy, or the Real Deal?
If you spend much time in the gym, you’re probably familiar with the “mirror muscle” crowd. They’re the guys who spend most of their time doing exercises that work the upper body muscles you can see while looking in the mirror—chest, abs, shoulders, biceps & triceps, and upper traps. They don’t do nearly as many exercises for the opposing muscles—the lats, lower trapezius, rear deltoids, rhomboids, or lower back. You might see them on the leg press or Smith machine once in awhile doing a little lower body work, and maybe they’ll spend 15 or 20 minutes doing cardio a couple times per week. But you won’t see them doing lunges up and down the aisles between machines, or find them in the yoga, pilates, or fusion classes—that stuff’s "just for women." Big mistake!
Posted 8/28/2008 9:00:00 AM By: : 15 comments 39,328 views
News from Another Planet: Could this happen here?
You can imagine my surprise when I checked my RSS feed this morning and found the story below, which purports to be from a news service on the planet Htrae (pronounced huh-trah–aye). I don’t know about you, but I’m guessing this story didn’t really come from outer space at all. On the other hand, the events it describes are definitely very different from anything you’d expect to find in the news on this planet, so who really knows? I’ll let you read the story and decide for yourself whether something like this could ever happen on this planet...
Posted 8/26/2008 5:00:00 AM By: : 63 comments 7,505 views
Where Does Your Motivation Go When You Lose it?
"I've lost my motivation."
"I just can't seem to find the motivation I need to stick to this."
"I do fine for a couple days, but then I just can't seem to stay motivated."
How many times have you said something like this to yourself? Probably more than a few times, if you're like me.
But have you ever wondered where your motivation goes when you lose it? If you knew that, it would probably be a lot easier to find it again, right?
Posted 8/21/2008 10:00:00 AM By: : 88 comments 45,055 views
Behavior Modification 101: How to Beat Your Rationalizations at Their Own Game
Out of all the creatures on this planet, only one has the ability to talk itself out of doing what it knows it needs to do. That would be you: homo sapiens.
Although this capacity shows up everywhere in human affairs, it is nowhere more extreme or self-defeating than when it is employed by your average dieter. It’s as if, when you go on a diet, something happens to your brain that makes you thoroughly incapable of recognizing even the most flagrant rationalization for what it is. Here’s a classic example, familiar to dieters everywhere:
Posted 8/19/2008 2:48:29 PM By: : 83 comments 14,187 views
The Two-Mile Challenge That Could Save the World
Looking for a simple way to do your health, your pocketbook, and your planet some good in 30 minutes or less?
Try the 2 Mile Bike Challenge.
Posted 8/16/2008 4:24:21 PM By: : 52 comments 11,499 views
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